«They never knew,» Zenonis answered. «Half the people in Vryetion know who my husband is, but none of them ever told the boiler boys. I was always afraid that would happen, but it never did.»
«Interesting,» Maniakes said. That meant Zenonis was widely liked in the town. Otherwise, someone eager to curry favor with the occupiers would surely have betrayed her, as had happened so often at so many other places in the westlands. It also meant no one had hated Parsmanios enough to want to strike at him through his family, a small piece of favorable information about him but not one to be ignored.
«You are being as kind to me as you can,» Zenonis said. «For this, I am in your debt, so much I can never hope to repay.»
«Nonsense,» Maniakes said. «You've done nothing to me. Why should I want to do anything to you?»
That question answered itself in his own mind as soon as he spoke it. Genesios would have slaughtered Parsmanios in the name of vengeance, and disposed of Zenonis and little Maniakes for sport. Likinios might have got rid of them merely for efficiency's sake, to leave no potential rivals at his back. Not being so vicious as Genesios nor so cold-blooded as Likinios, Maniakes was willing to let his sister-in-law and nephew live.
«You will let me think a while on what I should do?» Zenonis said, as if she still had trouble believing Maniakes. After he had reassured her yet again, she rose and prostrated herself before him.
«Get up,» he said roughly. «Maybe people whose greatgrandfathers were Avtokrators before them got used to that, but I never have.» The confession would have dismayed Kameas, but Kameas was back in Videssos the city. The vestiarios had accompanied Maniakes on his ill-fated journey to buy peace from Etzilios. Maniakes had almost been captured then. Kameas had been, though Etzilios later released him. Since then, he'd stuck close to the imperial city.
With still more thanks, Zenonis made her way out of the city governor's residence. Maniakes looked at Rhegorios. Rhegorios looked at Lysia. Lysia looked at Maniakes.
Being the Avtokrator, he had the privilege of speaking first. He could have done without it. «That,» he said, «was ghastly. If I'd known it was coming, that would have been hard enough. To have it take me by surprise this afternoon… I knew Parsmanios had lived in Vryetion. I didn't think about everything that would mean.»
«You did as well as you could,» Lysia said.
«Yes, I think so, too,» he answered without false modesty. «But I think I'd sooner have been beaten with boards.»
Thoughtfully, Rhegorios said, «She's nicer than I thought she'd be. Not bad-looking at all, a long way from stupid… I wonder what she saw in Parsmanios.»
«No telling,» Maniakes said wearily. «He wasn't a bad fellow, you know, till jealousy ate him up from the inside out.»
A servant came in with a platter of pears, apricots, and strawberries candied in honey. He looked around in some surprise. «The lady left before the sweet?» he said in faintly scandalized tones.
«So she did.» Maniakes' imperturbability defied the servitor to make something of it. After a moment, the Avtokrator went on, «Why don't you set that tray down? We'll get around to it sooner or later. Meanwhile, bring us a fresh jar of wine.»
«Meanwhile, bring us two or three fresh jars of wine,» Rhegorios broke in.
«Yes, by the good god, bring us two or three fresh jars of wine,» Maniakes exclaimed. «I hadn't planned to get drunk tonight, but then, things can change. Till this afternoon, I hadn't planned on entertaining the wife of my traitorous brother tonight, either.»
Lysia yawned. «I've had enough wine already,» she said. «I'm going upstairs to bed. I'll see what's left of the two of you in the morning.»
«She's smarter than either one of us,» Maniakes said. That judgment didn't keep him from using a small knife to scrape the pitch out from around the stopper of one of the wine jars with which the servant had presented him. Once the stopper was out, the fellow took the jar from him and poured his cup and his cousin's full.
Rhegorios lifted the goblet, spat on the floor in rejection of Skotos, and drank. «Ahh,» he said. «That's good.» He took another pull. «You forget, your magnifolent Majesty—» He and Maniakes both laughed at that. «—I grew up with Lysia. I've known for a long time that she's smarter than I am. And while I wouldn't commit lese majesty for anything…»
«I get your drift.» Maniakes drank, too, and ate a candied strawberry. Then he shook his head. «What a night. You know how the laundresses batter clothes against rocks to get the dirt out? That's how I feel now.»
«Life is full of surprises,» Rhegorios observed. «Isn't it, though?» Maniakes drained his cup and filled it again before the servant could. «I'd thought the Kubratoi and the Makuraners—to say nothing of Tzikas, which is generally a good idea—had long since taught me all I needed to know of that lesson. I was wrong.»
«I don't think Zenonis is out to kill you or overthrow the Empire—or to kill you and overthrow the Empire,» Rhegorios said.
«I don't think so, either,» Maniakes agreed. «But when you've been wrong before, you can't help wondering. I've given her a powerful reason to dislike me.»
«That's so,» his cousin admitted. «Times like this, you almost begin to understand how Genesios' ugly little mind worked.»
«I had that same thought not very long ago,» Maniakes said. «Frightening, isn't it?» He looked down into his goblet. It was empty. How did that happen? he wondered. Since no drunken mice staggered across the floor, he must have done it himself. He filled the cup again. «If I'd had some warning, I would have handled it better.»
«You did fine, cousin of mine,» Rhegorios said. «If you won't listen to Lysia, listen to me. I don't see what else you could have done. You explained what Parsmanios did, you explained what you did afterward, and you explained why. You didn't get angry during any of it I would have, I think.»
«I doubt it,» Maniakes said. «You probably would have pardoned Parsmanios, too. I'm sterner than you are.»
«Not for things like that,» Rhegorios declared. «I would have advised you to take his head—but it wasn't my place to advise you of anything, not with him wanting my job and being blood of my blood both. I thought you'd do right on your own, and you did.»
«Poor Zenonis, though,» the Avtokrator said. «If her being here took me by surprise, what I told her must have hit like a—like a—» He began to feel the wine, which made groping for a simile hard. He found one anyhow: «Like a jar of wine in a tavern brawl. Life shouldn't work that way.»
«A lot of things that shouldn't happen, happen to happen.» Rhegorios stared reproachfully at the winecup he was holding, as if shocked that the ruby liquid it contained had betrayed him into saying something so absurd. Then he giggled. So did Maniakes. They both let loose gales of laughter. With enough wine, the world looked pretty funny.
When Maniakes woke up the next morning, nothing was funny any more. He felt as if a thunderstorm were rattling his poor abused brains. Every sound was a crash, every sunbeam a bolt of lightning.
Lysia, who'd had a full night's sleep and only a little wine, was less than properly sympathetic. «You look like you're going to bleed to death through your eyes,» she said. «And you ought to comb your beard, or maybe iron it—it's pointing off to one side.»
«Oh, shut up,» he mumbled, not very loud.
His wife, heartless creature that she was suddenly revealed to be, laughed at him. «Remember, you've got another full day ahead of you, sorting through who was doing what to whom here and why, all the way through the Makuraner occupation.»
He groaned and sat up in bed. That prompted another groan, more theatrical than the first. Then he groaned yet again, this time in good earnest. «Phos, Zenonis is going to be back here this morning, telling me what she wants to do.»
«If she sees you like this—» Lysia hesitated. «No, come to think of it, maybe she went home and got drunk after dinner last night, too. You could hardly blame her if she did.»
«No, but she'll blame me,» Maniakes said. «I'm the Avtokrator. That's what I'm for—getting blamed, I mean.»
He breakfasted on a little bread and honey and a cautious cup of wine. Splashing cool water on his face helped. So did combing the tangles out of his beard. Lysia studied him, then delivered her verdict: «Amazingly lifelike.» Maniakes felt vindicated. He also felt human, in a glum sort of way.
Sure enough, by the time he came downstairs, petitioners were lined up in front of the city governor's
